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Sandy Lane Primary School

Curriculum

Approach

Our Behaviour Curriculum

Our Behaviour Curriculum aims to teach children our PRIDE Values and prepare them to be respectable citizens in the future. At Sandy Lane, we want exemplary behaviour to be an unspoken expectation. We ‘make it easy to behave and hard not to’ through:

  • Having clear and concise rules, routines, rewards and consequences that everyone follows;

  • Teaching, not telling, children how to behave;

  • Ensuring all adults are calm, consistent and fair in their response to behaviour;

  • Focusing explicitly on positive behaviour: recognising, describing and explaining what we want to see;

  • Adapting our approaches, where needed, for specific children with additional needs.

Our Behaviour Curriculum is driven by:

Ambition: Providing an education for all children, free from disruption, that enables us to focus on raising academic standards and whole school continuous improvement.

Equity: Ensuring all children in our school receive the same opportunities and support as those in the highest performing schools across the country, and that excellent child behaviour is central to achieving this aim.

Our Behaviour Curriculum is:

  • Taught – through explicit instruction, whole-school routines, assemblies, rewards and consequences, our character curriculum, and strong parental partnerships.

  • Caught – through daily opportunities to demonstrate and observe the PRIDE values, with staff consistently modelling them.

  • Sought – through ambassador roles, pupil societies, and enrichment opportunities encouraging leadership and initiative.

We provide explicit teaching of routines and behaviours, along with safe spaces for reflection, and opportunities to learn emotion regulation and engage in pupil leadership. All this supports our children in developing a sense of belonging within our school family, local community and the wider world.

Motivation

We use Rosenshine’s ten principles of instruction to ensure all children learn and internalise the expected behaviours. Teachers model the behaviours and give children time and context to practise—such as lining up, which is taught in class and reinforced across different areas of the school.

Our aim is for children to deeply understand how and why we behave, so these behaviours become second nature. The curriculum is tailored for children from EYFS to Year 6 and adapted to meet the needs of all, including those with SEND.

Doug Lemov writes:
“Children should never have to ask themselves, ‘What am I supposed to be doing?’... You want children to know what to do and to know there is no ambiguity here.”

This belief underpins our approach. We dedicate time to practising and embedding routines until they are instinctive. Our ‘Creating Culture’ week draws on research like Rosenshine’s principles and Willingham’s work on memory. Behaviour fluency and confidence grow through consistent practice.

Approach

Our Behaviour Curriculum is introduced at the beginning of each academic year. These early days are dedicated to teaching and embedding our expectations and the PRIDE Values. Each term begins with a refresher, ensuring consistency and clarity throughout the year.

Assemblies

Whole-school assemblies serve as shared spaces for the explicit teaching and celebration of our Behaviour Curriculum and PRIDE Values. These times allow our school family to reflect on what these values look like in action.

Retrieval, Review, and Revision

We regularly revisit our Behaviour Curriculum through daily retrieval practice, questions, and understanding checks. These opportunities ensure our children can recall and apply our expectations confidently.

Assessment

Formative assessment is used by staff to ensure every child is progressing in their understanding and application of our Behaviour Curriculum and PRIDE Values. Our aim is to maintain a positive culture where all children thrive, contribute, and feel proud of who they are becoming.

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